AN: Aaaand we're back! Thanks for waiting! I'd like to give a shout out to Afewconcepts65 for the ko-fi donation, so we're gettin' two chapters today!

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  Ah yup, I think I’m starting to get used to waking up like this. Seeing Kale sitting by the side of the bed diligently, and Chel somewhere nearby with her face all crumpled up with worry over me… Ooh, and the Bishop is here too, huh? Wow, that one’s unexpected. He’s asleep in his chair surprisingly, but the fact that he’s here in the room at all is really touching. Guess that must mean that the balding priest is watching over the front of the church. Makes me feel a little bit bad that so many of the church’s dwindling priests are all stuck here in my room monitoring me. I wonder how they’re gonna fill the void from those two that left…? Will they have to ask for more from the main church, or are priests usually locally sourced?

  “Saintess. You’re awake?”

  Oh, I guess Kale noticed that my eyes were open. And here I thought I was being sneaky by keeping them mostly shut… Well, I guess you can’t fool a bird’s keen eyes.

  “Mhmm, I guess I am-”

  “Hey! If you’re awake then why just y there like an idiot and keep worrying people?!”

  “Ah, I’m sorry for worrying you, Chel.”

  “Huh?! Who said I was worried?!”

  Uh oh, calm down there cutie; You’re making your tsundere side a bit too obvious there. Not that I’m compining, really.

  “Uhuh, you definitely weren’t worried, I understand.”

  At first Chel’s face stayed in its mega angry ‘I’ll hit you any minute!’ look, but after a few seconds of staring at me, it slowly slid into a concerned pout.

  “Wait, are you sure you’re alright? We checked to make sure you didn’t have any injuries, but did you maybe hit your head or something…?”

  Oh… I guess I must have messed up. She must have noticed that I’m still kind of out of it right now. It’s why I didn’t really want anyone to notice I was awake yet. Really would have been nice to have a few more minutes to sort out this strange feeling I’m stuck in right now.

  I don’t know, what would people call this? Would it be ‘shock’? Or maybe my mind is still trying to sort everything out from the whole ordeal I went through? Or maybe it’s just the aftereffects of coming back to life from energy exhaustion? Do I have aftereffects like that depending on what I died from? Is that a thing? I don’t think I was too different from normal the st time I came back, though…

  Does this fogginess I’m feeling have anything to do with the fact that the shadow is the one who sent me back this time? It’s true that it was always the Goddess who did it the other times, and I didn’t really leave in the usual way… Maybe the way the shadow concealed me from her is the cause of all this? I’d believe it if someone told me that was the case, for sure.

  “Mmm, I’ll be fine. I’m still just trying to figure everything out.”

  It’s not completely a lie if I say that; I do need to spend some time and think over all the crazy shit that happened during the dregs attack. Kale and I had to run around and survive in the forest for two whole days, and then I touched a relic and saw a past Saintess’s memories… And then I got possessed by her and died because of it, and had to go meet that ominous shadow again! So yeah, I think I definitely deserve some unpacking time.

  …Oh right, and I guess some eating time too, considering how much my stomach is begging me for food.

  “Is there maybe… any food that I could have?”

  ~~~

  I’d been pnning to use my eating time to maybe space out and get my thoughts on everything in order, but I guess our special little guests decided that me coming out of my room was the perfect time to come over and introduce themselves. Kinda rude of them to do it while I’m busy stuffing my face, but whatever; Apparently they’ve been waiting here for the past three days to meet with me, so I shouldn’t compin too much.

  Well, I say that, but if the Bishop hadn’t rushed off to the front of the church when we woke him up then I would have totally asked him to make them keep waiting.

  Too bad they’re a higher rank than Chel, or maybe I would have been able to get her to do it for me instead…

  “We greet Her Holiness the Saintess! Blessed be her divinity!”

  “Ah… Yes…”

  I guess the two of them aren’t just dressed like knights; They do the whole kneeling and everything as well, huh? Um… But why are they just staying down like that? And why aren’t they talking anymore? Do I… Do I have to…?

  “Uh… You can get up?”

  “Thank you, Your Holiness!”

  Ugh, I guess I was right. This is gonna be one of those weird things that I’m gonna have to get used to now that I’m important, isn’t it?

  …I don’t really like it.

  Well, at least it’s pretty neat how elegantly they move in those fancy, ornamental looking sets of armor they’re wearing. I don’t know, maybe I can get used to it so long as I just focus on how nice they look. With how basic and toga-like the priest clothes were, I would never expect the church’s knights to look so overly embellished like this, you know? Maybe that means there’s still hope for my Saintess outfit yet, if they’re sending such stylish looking people to escort me!

  Oh, I guess I spent too long looking them up and down. The two of them are starting to look a bit antsy. Well, okay, maybe antsy’s not the right word; The guy of the pair looks sort of offended, like I did something incorrectly, and the girl just keeps staring back at me like she’s judging me. …Did I maybe miss something again? Ugh, I hate feeling like I’m doing something wrong all the time! If it’s gonna keep being like this for the whole trip to the main church, then maybe I don’t want these guys with me. I could just get Kale to fly me there instead, so long as they just pointed which way we needed to go-

  Okay, I guess I’ve taken too long to do the right thing, because that offended looking knight decided to step forward and talk first.

  “Your Holiness, we are the padins dispatched to escort you to the capital! We apologize for the te arrival, along with our… diminished number.”

  Oh, yeah, I figured that’s who these guys were supposed to be. Neat that they’re padins though, means they must know a bit of healing magic themselves, huh? That’s a requirement for being a padin in a fantasy setting, right? Or at least I think that’s what I remember from all the stuff I saw in my previous life. And I guess them being padins would expin why there’s only two of them, since they should be pretty strong… Although from the way he phrased it, I’m willing to bet that that isn’t the actually the reasoning why.

  “...Did something happen on your way here?”

  I think I remember that the previous escort group was almost completely wiped out by the monster wave, and that that’s why they hadn’t shown up at the previously set time. But wasn’t this supposed to be a whole new group of escorts? Did they maybe only send two this time because their previous losses were already so great?

  For some reason, this time the dy-padin was the one to respond to me.

  “You knew of the monster wave, yes? We lost six of our fellow padins fending it off to protect this town. Even with the help of the local adventurers and mercenaries, the enemy’s numbers were far too great. Werner and I were the only ones to survive from our group.”

  Huh? Wait… But that can’t be true! Didn’t I get all the dregs to follow me into the forest? Didn’t Inaiah kill all of them?! Even if I lost a few here and there while I ran away, the people that the Guild Master got together for the fight should have been able to deal with any stragglers that might have shown up, right? Right?!

  Oh wait, maybe I’m just being an idiot! I’m sure they must have ran into the dregs before they made it to the town, and were just trying to stall them and give us some time. If that’s the case, I feel super guilty for their sacrifices, then…

  “...I’m sorry for your losses. How long ago did this happen, if I can ask?”

  “Thank you for your condolences, Saintess; I will rey your kind words to their families. As for the timing of their deaths, it happened three days ago, on the day when we arrived in this town.”

  …What? If it’s three days ago, then… It happened while Kale and I were running around in the forest?

  But how?!

  It doesn’t make any sense!

  My head whipped over to look at Kale, but seeing him just sitting there quietly, not refuting a single word of theirs, just confused me all the more. How is it possible? What could have possibly killed them? What, did the Guild Master see the padins show up and just decide to leave it all to them?! There’s no way he would have done something so irresponsible! …Or could it be that they heard that I ran away and no one knew where I was, so they followed after me? That could be it! If that’s the case, then maybe they ran into a bunch of the dregs that were following me, and ended up getting killed by mistake! They said that the padins died protecting the town, but it’d make sense if they didn’t want to admit that they died by accident searching for me and were just trying to protect their dignity, right?

  “Um, could you tell me, did they maybe die in the woods, or…?”

  “They died valiantly in the streets of this town protecting it, Your Holiness. Worry not; Even with the town in the current state that it’s in, their bodies have already been sent back to their respective retives through carriers”

  “Its current state…?”

  Oh no. Oh no no no no no… I’m not liking what I’m hearing. I’m not liking it at all! It can’t be true! It can’t be the case! I made a noble decision and led all of the dregs away! I made a risky sacrifice and even died so that this nice town that has all the people I care about in it wouldn’t have to suffer!

  Don’t tell me that everything I did was for nothing!

  Before I knew what I was doing I’d already shot up and was making my way out of the dining room, practically running as my feet carried me to the front of the church.

  And when I opened the door, I couldn’t possibly deny the truth any longer.

  Bodies under rge dirty sheets being carried out of the door, rows upon rows of bloody and broken people ying there waiting for treatment. Blood streaked all over the previously pristine walls and floors. And the fact that a rge number of civilians were mixed in amongst the people who’d been carried here in their armor…

  …It can only mean that I failed.